Group Counseling: Strategies for Workplace Issues in Young Adults

This essay examines the application of group counseling to address workplace issues faced by young adults. It explores how group therapy, underpinned by theories like REBT, can help individuals cope with challenges such as hostile work environments, lack of managerial support, and toxic co-workers. The essay highlights the benefits, including reduced stress, improved self-perception, and the development of coping mechanisms, while also acknowledging the challenges faced by counselors and participants, such as maintaining confidentiality and managing group dynamics. It contrasts group counseling with individual therapy, emphasizing the unique advantages of group settings, such as shared experiences and diverse perspectives. The essay also details intervention strategies, including group discussions and establishing a supportive environment, to promote effective counseling outcomes for young professionals. The essay concludes by emphasizing the role of social interactions and therapeutic support in improving the mental well-being of young adults in the workplace.

Running head: GROUP COUNSELING
Group Counseling
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author note

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Group counseling refers to kind of the therapy in which the people who face the similar
kind of the experiences come together for the purpose of meeting the professional therapist.
Group counseling can be said to be suitable for the young people as they have to face hardships
at this stage of life like depression and group counseling can make the people realize that there
are other people who are dealing with similar kind of situation (Chen & Rybak, 2017). This
essay elaborates on the problems that the young people face in the workplace and how group
counseling can help them in confronting this problem.
The young people often have to deal with a hostile environment in the workplace owing
to bad manager or the presence of the toxic co-workers. The supervisors fail to provide the clear
direction to the employees and this makes them face problems in the company. The young
people are not provided with the positive feedback and they are reprimanded that has a bad
influence on their mental state. They feel demotivated and lose the confidence that affects the
quality of their work in a company. The young people faces a lot of insecurity and the support
that they can get with the help of group counseling can help in relieving their dire mental state.
The group counseling is underpinned by REBT theory that can help the people in leading a
content life. The employees need the support from the managers and in the event of having a bad
boss they lose the sense of direction in a company (Bernard & Dryden, 2018). The faults of the
employees are pointed out their mistakes that reduce the efficiency of their work while working
in a company. The young people have to face the toxic co-workers that can have a negative
effect on their productivity and drain the creativity out of the employees. Rational emotive
behavior therapy (REBT) is a psychotherapy that can help in resolving the emotional along with
the behavior problems residing within the people (David et al., 2019). It can help people in
getting over the disturbances that can help them in leading a happier life. The individuals does

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not get disturbed by the unfortunate circumstances but by the construction of their views. Group
counseling can be pivotal in addressing this problem of the young people and it can help them in
seeing the things from broader point of view (MacLaren, Doyle & DiGiuseppe, 2016). Group
counseling helps the young people in understanding the philosophies and the beliefs of the other
people that can help them in leading a fulfilling life. The human beings have the rational along
with the irrational tendencies that has a great bearing on their life. The self-defeating element
that the individuals have can be addressed in the right manner by taking recourse to group
counseling (Bennett & Turner, 2017). The young people can understand that the other people
have to face situations in the workplace that makes them feel guilty and angry and this can be
instrumental in helping them overcome depression. There are various benefits that the young
people can get with the help of group counseling that can prove to be of immense help for them.
It can help in curbing the negative emotions that an individual feels that can help an individual in
dealing with the situations in the workplace. It can help the people in challenging the
assumptions that they have that can help them in feeling themselves to be an integral part of the
society. The group counseling can make the young people feel that it is not necessary that they
need to be approved by the other people that can help the young people in getting rid of the
negative attitude that they have towards themselves.
The young people have to face the challenges in the event of undergoing the group
counseling. There are certain challenges that have to be faced by the counselor in the event of
working with a group. They have to work in a manner that can prove to be developmentally
appropriate for all the members in the group. The counselors have to built the rapport with that of
the individual participants that can prove to be difficult for them. The participants should feel
engaged at the time of the psychotherapy session that can take a toll on the counselors who

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attend to the group counseling. The counselor has to honour the unique contributions of the
individuals that can make the process of the group counseling effective in the long run. The
group dynamics can present challenges for the counselors at the time of group counseling
(Shechtman, 2017). The challenges of group counseling rise owing to the fact that the young
people have the tendency of forming the sub-groups and the counselors have to be careful
regarding this fact as it can have a negative influence on the other participants. The group
counseling can prove to be a arduous task on the part of the counselor as they need to possess the
listening skills along with the patience that can help them in understanding the problems of the
young people. The personality clashes can take place at the time of group counseling that can
add difficulties in the path of the counselor that can be stated to be a challenge in relation to the
group counseling. The young people are aggressive and they can disagree to certain things that
can make the process of the group counseling challenging. The young people feel that the
counselors do not have the ethical standards and this prevents them from revealing their
problems clearly (Esposito et al., 2017). There are other people at the time of group counseling
and the young people feel hesitant to talk about their boss or the co-workers in front of the other
people. The young people feels that in the event of revealing their feelings truthfully, their
problems in the office would become amplified that can make them reclusive at the time of the
group counseling therapy. The counselor helps in identifying the problematic arenas for the
young people that can make the young people more fearful about the weakness in their character.
There are advantages and the disadvantages of group counseling the young people who
have problems with their bosses along with the colleagues in a company. The group therapy can
make the young people feel that there are other people who are also struggling in the workplace
that can be instrumental in reducing the stress that an individual feels. It can help in offering

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personal insight in the work experiences of the other people that can come of use for the young
people. It can help in lessening the feeling of the isolation that is felt by the people in the event
of going through conflict situations in the office (Shechtman & Sarig, 2016). This can help the
young people in managing their anger in the company and remove the anxiety that they feel in
their lives. Group counseling can prove to be advantageous as it can help in offering the space of
the validation along with the understanding. Group sessions can be powerful as compared to the
individual work as a person can receive the support from more than that of one source. An
individual can receive the feedback on the basis of point of view of other people by the help of
group counseling and it can help in analyzing the office situations from the multiple
perspectives. The therapeutic support can help in reframing the conflicts with the co-workers
along with the boss in a new way that can work to the benefit of the aggrieved individual. The
disadvantages of group counseling arise for the young people who have problems with the
colleagues and the bosses because they feel hesitant to speak in front of many people. They must
have faced traumatic events in their workplace and they find it overwhelming to talk about it all
over again. The sharing of the details of the past experiences with the strangers can make an
individual feel uncomfortable which is a disadvantage pertaining to the group counseling (Sue et
al., 2019). The members in the event of divulging the facts of the office have to feel insecure in
case of the group counseling. The lack of the confidentiality can be stated to be a crucial
disadvantage in relation to the group counseling.
The undergoing of the group counseling and the individual counseling will have different
results on the young adults. In individual counseling, issues are brought to the fore front by one
therapist who listen to the concerns that the people are facing. The kind of feedback that is given
is dependent on the training of the therapist. Personal nature of exchange taking place in between

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therapist and that of client helps in focusing on the issues that the individual is confronting
within the framework of the workplace. The group therapy on the other hand involves the
interaction with the people who are outside the familial network of the client (Moon, 2016). The
group counseling does not employ interaction features in between members but they rather focus
on themes that have been brought forward by the members who are present at the time of group
counseling. The advantages of group counseling in the case of the young people having problems
in the office lies in the fact that it can bring to light the myriad problems that the employees have
to face and can help the people in seeing the nature of the events from a different perspective. It
can help the people in finding the solutions to their problems that can be applied by them later on
within the framework of the workplace. The group therapy can help the clients in finding an
environment that is safe that helps them in exploration of the areas of their vulnerability
(Foulkes, 2018). It can help them in coming into contact with those people who have faced the
similar kind of situations and can hence help in emboldening the client. The clients can form a
common identity with the help of the group counseling that can help in reducing the isolation
that they feel in their lives. It can help in building trust, respect along with the compassion
among the members of the group that can help them in healing from the problems that they are
facing in the workplace. Group facilitator takes recourse to the strategies and takes recourse to a
person-centered approach that focuses on the strengths of the individual members. The members
of the group counseling meet at regular basis that can provided them with abundant opportunities
for discussing the problems that they have in relation to workplace. It can help in addressing the
emotional concerns of the clients and the suggestions can help them in rectifying the actions that
can help in reducing the stress and the conflict in their lives (de Bruin et al., 2015). The social

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interactions can greatly help in alleviating the problems that the people have in their organization
and it can help them in leading a normal life.
There are intervention strategies that can be taken recourse that can help in counseling
people facing problems in their professional life. Group discussion can act as the cornerstone in
relation to the group counseling. A safe environment should be established by the group
counselor that can help in making the counseling meaningful for the people who are present in it.
The ground rules should be established that can prove to be integral in maintaining proper
conduct among the members of the group counseling session (Sundquist et al., 2015) The
prompting questions can be used by the counselor that can act as an effective strategy that can
guide the discussion towards the meaningful ends. The counselor can find the commonalities that
can help in building the element of the group cohesion that can help in making the group
counseling effective in the long run. The REBT theory has been chosen as it can help the young
people in seeing the things from a broader perspective that can resolve the dilemma in their lives.
Group counseling can be said to be effective as it allows the people in expressing
themselves before the others and it helps in the development of the compassion of the
participants. The group counseling helps in instilling hope in the people when they see the
progress of the other people in the group. The REBT theory can be stated to more effective as it
can help in addressing philosophical basis of the emotional disturbance along with distorted
cognitions that makes it a lot more powerful (David et al., 2019). REBT helps in highlighting on
the importance of the secondary disturbance whereas the Cognitive Behaviour Therapy ignores
the area of the secondary disturbance (Bennett & Turner, 2017). The problems in the
professional life make an individual feel troubled mentally and it adds to the anguish of the

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individuals. REBT theory is more appropriate for addressing the group counseling as it helps in
teaching the element of the unconditional self-acceptance instead of any kind of the self-rating.

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